Generally, a typical electrical connector includes an insulating or dielectric housing having a plurality of terminal-receiving passages. A plurality of conductive terminals are inserted into the passages. The terminals may be terminated to discrete electrical wires, circuit traces on a printed circuit board or other appropriate terminal leads. A mating end of the housing is interengageable with the mating end of a complementary mating connector or other connecting device.
Some electrical connectors include a shield or shell about the connector housing to protect the terminal interface from ingress or egress of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and/or radio frequency interference (RFI). The shield often is a stamped and formed sheet metal shell, and it is desirable to connect the shell to ground. One method of grounding the shell is to attach a ground wire directly to the shell. This method has problems in requiring a separate connecting operation and also is relatively expensive. Another method of grounding the shell is to place a metal bracket around the connector housing, with the bracket being interengaged between the shell and a bare ground wire extending out of the rear of the connector housing. The bracket may include latches for engaging the mating connector. Such brackets also are relatively expensive and require separate connecting operations. In addition, the ground wire must be stripped to expose a bare portion thereof, and the ground wire is not supported to ensure good engagement between the bracket and the wire.
The present invention is directed to solving the grounding problems discussed above in a very simple and very efficient shielded electrical connector assembly wherein the connector shield or shell is grounded to a ground terminal in the connector housing automatically in response to assembling the shell to the housing.